Grand Am Bolt-Ons - Building A Grander Grand Am

The Pontiac Grand Am for many years has been one of General Motors top selling cars, and for good reason. It offers a healthy dose of performance in a curvy package for a great price. The current generation Grand Am GT is equipped with a 3.4L pushrod engine pumping out 175 hp and has 205 ft-lb of torque on tap, which makes for a great overall driving experience.

Any of you who followed along with our Grand Prix X-P buildup know that I can't leave well enough alone and this Grand Am GT with the SC/T look is no exception. It started life as a '02 Grand Am GT coupe purchased from Bob Sellers Pontiac/GMC in Farmington Hills, Michigan (I highly recommend this dealership, the sales and service are exceptional!). No sooner did we get it home, we started tinkering with it. The first thing we set out to do was set this Grand Am apart from the rest on the road. Jace Stokes and the Grand Am brand team had the perfect answer. They were kind enough to donate an SC/T hood and spoiler (RPO PDE for both on a new Grand Am for a $140 savings, or T50 and D81 for the hood and spoiler respectively when ordered through your dealership's parts department).

The SC/T hood and spoiler gave the Grand Am an aggressive look without being too flashy, just what we were after while continuing the Pontiac's perfect balance of form and function. Speaking of function, the hood is not functional, however if you choose to you may remove the hood block plates for extra cooling as we did.

3/28

Next came another visual cue to identify the SC/T from other Grand Am's on the road. We had our friends at Reflective Concepts (www.reflectiveconcepts.com) create some custom door panel and trunk lid "Grand Am SC/T" graphics. These graphics are made from top shelf reflective vinyl with a light silver background and a purple foreground for a tasteful, yet stunning, look. Reflective Concepts was the originator of reflective inlays for Pontiac vehicles as well as being the first to be GM Licensed to use such logos.

After upgrading the exterior to look fast, we had to back it up with some power. Hence this story. An APOC intake and SLP Loudmouth Exhaust system will be installed and tested. So follow along as we show you how to take your '99-03 Grand Am to a new level of performance in one weekend!

On the Dyno
We headed back to see our friends at Maximum Performance Racing to see how our first round of modifications affected the SC/T. Our baseline run was 141.8 hp and 178.8 ft-lb of torque which works out to 177.25 hp and 223.5 ft-lb of torque, respectively at the flywheel. This is relatively close to the stock 175 hp and 205 ft-lb rating at the flywheel assuming a 20-percent driveline loss. With just the addition of the APOC intake and SLP exhaust, our numbers shot up to 158.6 hp and 202.1 ft-lb of torque at the wheels which is good for 198.25 flywheel horsepower and 252.625 ft-lb of torque assuming the same 20-percent driveline loss. The torque numbers are a little skewed due to being dyno'd in second gear (we are unable to dyno in third gear due to the speed limiter being in place) but they show a good representation of the gain we experienced, the horsepower numbers however are dead on. Peak horsepower is not all we gained however, if you take a look at our dyno chart you will see a large area under the curve between stock and the APOC intake and SLP exhaust, it's this gain that truly makes the car accelerate better.

27/28

At the Track
Our first track outing after the mods took place at Norwalk Raceway Park in Norwalk, Ohio. The SC/T proved to be quite powerful knocking off consistent 15.2 e.t.'s at 89.90 mph, the weather was a bit on the warm side in the high 60s as well as a 10 mph headwind at the track. This was the perfect time to learn the car and how to launch it and if manually shifting helped at all (which it didn't in our case) as well as some other track prep (removing the spare tire, etc.).

28/28

The fun really began at Mid Michigan Motorplex for the Michigan Grand Prix Club's (www.migpc.com) Michigan Grudge Match. With weather in the high 50s and track prep consisting of removing the spare tire and jack alone, the SC/T ripped off consistent 15-ohs at 92 mph! Now that's some serious driving excitement from such few modifications!